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As CEO and cofounder of an enterprise startup in New York City, a huge challenge I face is staying focused. The need for focus applies to everything from product features to customer verticals to preferred office locations. “Creep” is everywhere, luring in many other executives I talk with regularly as well.

It’s hard to avoid involvement in every single discussion happening when the company is often referred to as “your baby”; I know I’m not alone in that sentiment. That said, one of the most valuable lessons I’m learning right now is how to take off some of the twenty hats I’ve been wearing for five years and hire others to lead in their given areas of expertise. I know a lot of executives claim, “the smartest thing I ever did was hire people smarter than myself,” but more so than that, the most important thing I’m doing now is what I call “Hiring Up.”

Hiring Up is a way to add to your team to create a collaborative environment in which one can learn from unbelievably experienced executives while still guiding the overall strategy and direction of the business. In the last month or so we’ve had two incredible people join our team that highlight what Hiring Up really looks like and why it’s so valuable to growing startup organizations. This practice, it should be noted, is also extremely competitive these days as these experienced pros are in very high demand in every startup organization I encounter.

For our part, up until July of this year, we didn’t have a COO. With three cofounders, it was manageable for someone to keep the business running even though no one had a strictly operational background. We spoke with many of our investors and advisors and realized that we needed to seek out this person aggressively and that we needed someone who had experience scaling businesses that focused on solving critical problems. That said, we’re still a lean team and it was important that whomever we hired could yet wear many hats, one of those being guiding corporate and product marketing and the building out of a marketing team altogether.

Enter Jennifer Hyman Sutton - former CMO of and VP of Marketing of DoubleVerify as well as an early member of the team at that acquired and integrated YouTube, where she ran the marketing team. She not only brings years of corporate experience but she also brings an unbelievable amount of expertise in scaling successful businesses. With her opinion at the executive table, we’re able to make decisions more efficiently when it comes to everything from organizing our intern program to prioritizing our product roadmap to determining vertical foci. You name it, she’s jumping in and leading operational decision making - she defines focus, which as I mentioned, is exactly what we strive for.

It should be noted that my cofounder, Eli Bronner, has spent the last few years running our sales organization (in addition to business development, recruiting, etc.). With his booming bass voice he has perhaps always sounded like the most seasoned professional on a call but he has learned through hard work and tireless effort. He is as passionate as you can get about our solution but our sales organization has been transformed under our second major hire this summer, Brian Feller, our new VP of Global Sales.

Similar to Jen, Brian is a great example of Hiring Up. Brian was the sales founder at WHIPTAIL, the world’s first all flash-based storage vendor. WHIPTAIL was acquired last fall by Cisco for a whopping $415 million. That is not Brian’s only success; previously he had been at Citrix for years honing his skills as a sales leader. Prior to joining our team, we had long-discussed the value of channel partnerships but had limited insights into how to focus and grow those efforts. With Brian, I learn everyday what truly matters and what doesn’t when it comes to closing a deal and how to leverage effective partnerships to everyone’s ultimate benefit.

In these cases, it’s gratifying (I hope) for these executives to be able to have real influence as we grow while simultaneously having confidence in the years I’ve put in to get the company to where it is today. Yes, there’s still management and training involved (we are a mobile-first communications solution after all) but hiring experienced, seasoned corporate veterans is an entirely different beast than hiring a handful of recent grads to learn business lessons the hard way on your dime.

What these hires really reflect is that Hiring Up doesn’t mean losing control. Some young founders are scared to hire those with more real-world experience; that mindset is a losing one. Some young founders are intimidated by resumes that showcase previous massive wins; that fear is limiting and damaging to their businesses. Hiring Up to me is a win for everyone involved.

Working at a startup is exciting, the pace of change and growth can be staggering. That opportunity is one that many who have been in large corporations before truly relish. For Lua, as with many other businesses, the opportunity to learn from those with more professional years under their belts is a massive advantage. I sleep a little bit easier knowing that with these two experts on our team, we’re going to be able to avoid pitfalls and take advantage of opportunities that we may never have seen coming without them.